Code of Conduct

ILEA Terms of Use for Our Social Network

Emerging platforms for online collaboration are fundamentally changing the way we work, offering new ways to engage with customers, colleagues, and the world at large. It's a new model for interaction and we believe social computing can help you to build stronger, more successful business relationships. And it's a way for you to take part in global conversations related to the work we are doing at ILEA and the things we care about.

The choice to participate in social media is yours. If you do, please follow these guiding principles:

  • Provide unique, individual perspectives on what's going on at ILEA and in the world.
  • Post meaningful, respectful comments - in other words, no spam and no remarks that are off-topic or offensive.
  • Reply to comments quickly, when a response is appropriate.
  • Respect proprietary information and confidentiality.
  • When disagreeing with others' opinions, keep it cool.

Rules of Engagement

Be transparent. Your honesty—or dishonesty—will be quickly noticed in the social media environment. If you are blogging about your membership at ILEA, use your real name, identify that you’re a member of ILEA, and be clear about your role. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing, be the first to point it out.

Be judicious. Make sure your efforts to be transparent don't violate ILEA's privacy, confidentiality and legal guidelines for external commercial speech. Ask permission to publish or report on conversations that are meant to be private or internal to ILEA. All statements must be true and not misleading and all claims must be substantiated and approved. Product benchmarks must be approved for external posting by the appropriate product benchmarking team. Also be smart about protecting yourself, your privacy and ILEA Confidential information. What you publish will be around for a long time, so consider the content carefully and be judicious.

Write what you know. Ensure you write and post about your areas of expertise, especially as it relates to ILEA and our association partners, vendors and members. And write it in the first person. If you publish to a website outside ILEA, please use a disclaimer something like this: "The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent ILEA's positions, strategies or opinions." Also, please respect brand, trademark, copyright, fair use, confidentiality and financial disclosure laws—if you have any questions about these, contact ILEA headquarters. Remember, you are personally responsible for your content.

Perception is reality. In online social networks, the lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred. Just by identifying yourself as an ILEA member, you are creating perceptions about ILEA by our shareholders, members, and the general public—and perceptions about you by your colleagues and managers. Do us all proud. Be sure that all content associated with you is consistent with your work and with ILEA's values and professional standards.

It's a conversation. Talk to your readers like you would talk to real people in professional situations. In other words, avoid overly pedantic or "composed" language. Don't be afraid to bring in your own personality and say what's on your mind. Consider content that's open-ended and invites response.

Encourage comments. You can also broaden the conversation by citing others who are blogging about the same topic and allowing your content to be shared or syndicated.

Are you adding value? There are millions of words out there. The best way to get yours read is to write stuff people will value. Social communication from ILEA members should help our members, partners, and vendors. It should be thought-provoking and build a sense of community. If it helps people improve knowledge or skills; build their businesses; do their jobs; solve problems; or understand ILEA better—then it's adding value.

Your Responsibility: What you write is ultimately your responsibility. Participation in social computing on behalf of ILEA is not a right and it therefore needs to be taken seriously and with respect.

Create some excitement. As a business and as a corporate citizen, ILEA is making important contributions to the world, to the future of special events, and to public dialogue on a broad range of issues. Our business activities are increasingly focused on high-value innovation. Let's share with the world the exciting things we're learning and doing—and open up the channels to learn from others.

Be a Leader. There can be a fine line between healthy debate and incendiary reaction. Do not denigrate our competitors or ILEA. Try to frame what you write to invite differing points of view without inflaming others. Some topics—like politics or religion—slide more easily into sensitive territory. So be careful and considerate. Once the words are out there, you can't really get them back. And once an inflammatory discussion gets going, it's hard to stop.

Did you screw up? If you make a mistake, admit it. Be upfront and be quick with your correction. If you're posting to a blog, you may choose to modify an earlier post—just make it clear that you have done so. If it gives you pause, pause. If you're about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don't shrug it off and hit 'send.' Take a minute to review these guidelines and try to figure out what's bothering you, then fix it. If you're still unsure, you might want to discuss it with your manager or legal representative. Ultimately, the decision about what you publish is yours—as is the responsibility. So be sure.

Moderation. Moderation is the act of reviewing and approving content before the content is published on the site. ILEA does not endorse or take responsibility for content posted by 3rd parties. It is preferred that all content be posted by registered users of a site in accordance with an accepted terms and conditions and a code of conduct.

ILEA Content: We do not moderate content we publish. This means we allow for our blog authors to post directly without approval, as long as they have taken the legal training.

Registered Content: Registered content is content submitted as a comment, reply or post to an ILEA site where the member has registered and is logged into the site. For registered content we do not require moderation of content before the content is published to the site. Registered content is directly published and content is moderated post publishing.

Moderation Guidelines

ILEA strives for a balanced online dialogue. When we do moderate content, we moderate using three guiding principles.

The Good, the Bad, but not the Ugly. If the content is positive or negative and in context to the conversation then we approve the content, regardless if the content is favorable or unfavorable to ILEA. However if the content is ugly, offensive, denigrating and completely out of context then we reject the content.
 

The Legal Stuff
The ILEA Community is provided as a service for ILEA Members. ILEA is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others.  

ILEA disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted ILEA or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall ILEA be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.  

Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants ILEA and users of this list the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.  

Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.  

ILEA does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and do not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to  ILEA’s attention,  ILEA will take all appropriate action.  

ILEA reserve the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.